OK! So I finally got to sit down this morning and play the LotV Beta! I got to play it for about 5-6 hours (and now I’m going down to GSL Code A match, make sure you watch!), and really enjoyed raging on my stream a bit to some much imbalanced and misunderstood play (as expected).





I thought I’d go ahead and summarize some of my thoughts as the Beta goes forward with a few blogs here and there. Obviously I only played a little bit and it’s day 1 for me, so I can’t be 100% on the money with everything, but I think I can do a pretty good job. Anyways, here goes:





New Economy

New Worker Count

Starting with 12 workers is crazy. The game starts instantly. I was just a tad worried going into the beta about this change, and thought most likely it would be a really good one. The game really gets going so much faster now. Being an old fogie who’s played since the beginning of SC1, I actually do like the down time in the beginning of the game to assess my ideas and strategies before anything happens, but its fine that that time is gone. I think this change is really good and going to make matches a bit faster and more exciting from the get-go. Less talk time about ninja turtles and nintendo games for myself and tasteles though :(((((

New Mineral Amounts

Half of the patches now, if I’m correct, have only ~750 minerals in them. It’s a cool idea to force expansions faster, with more action all around the map. I was worrying about this a lot before the beta was released. For the record, today’s games were more about figuring out what units did than anything, so I don’t have any information regarding my theory on why the new resource amounts could be bad based upon those games. I want to mention it anyways.

With less resources per patch, some styles of play could be choked out. For instance, think about Protoss vs Terran. If you want to play a safe macro-based game vs Terran, then you end up taking your 3rd base quite a bit later than Terran does (unless they waste some units or give you some sort of opening of course..). For Protoss to properly defend things, they need certain amounts of tech. Blink is really important. Thermal Lance is really important. A good Observer spread is really important. A certain number of Colossus / Immortals is really important.

Before you have these things, you kinda chill in your base trying to defend with clunky, low range type units. With the lower resource count, sitting around waiting for everything to increment out (especially of the robo). I think this type of play might be damaged by the lower mineral counts. Patches will run out before you are ready to do something safe.

I dunno if it will turn out like that, but definitely something I’m watching out for.

New Gas Amounts

I didn’t play any Zerg or Terran today, so this is just theory:

In TvZ, Terran doesn’t need all the gas that is available to them on the bases they have available. The battles around the ~4th base of Zerg are often times quite prolonged. If geysers in the earlier expansions are drying up 600-800 gas faster, that is going to mean a lot less banelings and a lot lower chance of hitting 3/3.

Again, not sure about this one. Just a thought.





New Units

Protoss - Adept

I think this is a fantastic unit design. Not sure exactly how the balance is on it at the moment, but its really neat. There are a lot of little tricks you can do with it, and it really rewards heavy multitasking. Sending out the image thingy while achieving another objective like drawing units away, killing a drone, or getting a watch tower? Pretty damn cool. Kinda reminds me of Reapers in a way, but with way more buff to em. Cool idea, totally excited to see where it ends up.

Protoss - Exploding Orb Thingy

WTF I can’t think of what its called atm. Anyways, you know what I’m talking about. I think, based on lots of the changes that Blizzard is making, that they want to make things in SC2 less hard-countery, kinda like SC1. A good and noble idea!

This thing hard counters land units though I think. I can’t imagine a Zerg who has gone for ground units that could ever, in an even game, be in a good position during a fight. The amount you have to split and run from this thing is insane. It does so much damage, if you are clumped up, you will simply lose. But what if you micro back? Won’t the rest of Protoss’ army crush whatever you didn’t run back?

Not exactly sure, but this thing was a complete baller vs ground armies.

It kinda makes me think of the Mothership Core. The Mothership Core really did a lot to help PvP. It gave a lot more options. Despite that, PvP late game is generally dominated by Colossus based Deathballs currently. This thing won’t allow that. Late game PvP will look wild and definitely change a TON due to this unit.

Terran - Cyclone

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Ok, to be honest, I already knew this thing was broken back at Blizzcon. We all did. And I actually am a fan of the way Blizzard over-buffs stuff, to make sure it gets tested out a LOT. Infact I’m happy they are doing that with this as well. Kinda. I am surprised at how much this is by far the most ridiculous unit I’ve ever seen. The Warhound was a thousand times more balanced than this thing. Very much looking forward to the first patch.

Zerg - Lurker

Didn’t get to see this too much. It was really fun and cool in SC1 so I guess I’ll just wait and see. Solid unit design anyways.

Zerg - Ravager

This unit is pretty crazy. I kinda like the idea behind it, but its a bit powerful at the moment. Sure, it killed me and every other Protoss a bunch of times today, but that’s not what I care about. Numbers can be tweaked, etc. What I’m really scared about is this:

The Ravager is made out of Roaches. Roach tech routes were already good. Now burrow movement is way easier to get, and you get these badasses which bomb flying units, splash your army, and bust forcefields. On top of that, the Immortal was HUGELY nerfed vs Roaches. On top of that, Mutas. Right now most pro-level PvZs that you see will revolve around Blink and Sentries for the mid game on the Protoss side. Forcefields and Blink allow Protoss to expand quickly, defend, and even punish a Zerg player. Well, now they can bash your Forcefields down. This Blink/Sentry style might go away. That means Mutas become that much scarier. That means Protoss might need to start opening Phoenixes all the time. Welcome back 2011.





So there are some of my thoughts

Please remember this is literally the very beginning of the Beta, so there’s no reason to be scared that the game will be ruined. I have the utmost confidence that the game is going to be better than it ever has been once this stuff is all balanced out. There’s a lot of awesome “almost SC3″ ideas in LotV, and it will be awesome to see the game evolve so much.

Very excited for the next patch!

P.S,

WHY IS THAT REJECT LADDER MAP INFERNO POOLS IN THE BETA MAP POOL?????????????????